Augustine of Hippo (354-430), famously said: “Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.” And Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) added, “I do not seek to understand so that I can believe, but I believe so that I may understand; and what is more, I believe that unless I do believe, I shall not understand.”
It is as if belief opens up an inner treasure-trove of understanding impossible to attain without prior faith. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews said, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 NKJV). And the Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), wrote about the necessity of taking a “leap of faith,” with understanding coming after the faith-risk of leaping. The amazing truth is that faith is self-authenticating; sufficient proof reveals itself only after the risk of believing.
As you meditate on this ancient insight, pray with Saint Anselm his prayer seeking the knowledge of God:
“O my God, teach my heart where and how to seek You, where and how to find You.
You are my God and You are my all and I have never seen You.
You have made me and remade me, You have bestowed on me all the good things I possess,
Still I do not know You.
I have not yet done that for which I was made.
Teach me to seek You.
I cannot seek You unless You teach me or find You unless You show Yourself to me.
Let me seek You in my desire, let me desire You in my seeking.
Let me find You by loving You, let me love You when I find You. Amen.”
While none of us has ever seen God, we are nevertheless capable of sensing God as directly as our skin senses the wind. When you risk believing in God and God’s active, actual presence with you, God will in God’s timing and way, authenticate your faith. Guaranteed. In August, 1967, I risked belief in Jesus’ words about seeking and finding, risked belief in a yet unknown God. I then began searching, seeking God with my whole heart, as Anselm’s prayer so beautifully expresses it. In late November of that year, God’s Holy Spirit, the very wind-love of God, breathed upon me, changing my life forever.
Many years later, while praying during a time of troubling doubt, Jesus said to me: “To see Me, you must first believe that I am with You. I show Myself only to the eyes of faith.”
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